Fight Fire with Fire and Burn the Whole World Down
by NeverGonnaStop
Summary: Alone and beaten, Harry resorts to desperate measures in the war with Voldemort and his forces. There was no low, no evil his enemies wouldn't resort to. And so he saw fit to dive straight to the bottom and create a horcrux of his own. That was how it started, that's how the end of the wizarding world began. Two immortal dark lords duking it out was just too much.
1. 1- A Horcrux of Necessity

**Chapter 1:**

 **A Horcrux of Necessity**

* * *

Harry watched as the reality of their situation slowly dawned on Draco Malfoy.

He was pretty sure the blonde git had never woken up in a nondescript tent, bound in chains with a none too happy enemy standing over him. Harry supposed he should be amused, or at the very least feel vindictive as his supposed rival finally experienced what was, for Harry, a monthly occurrence. And yet all he could feel was remorse and no small amount of apprehension for what he was about to do.

"What is this, Potter!" Draco demanded as he struggled against his chains. "Release me!"

Harry ignored his commands as he placed the small, golden sphere on the end table he transfigured for the occasion. Even in the low candlelight he could read those taunting words in Dumbledore's curly handwriting.

"If you're trying to intimidate me you'd be better off getting Weasley in here." Malfoy joked as Harry quietly muttered the incantations over the Snitch.

Harry was honestly impressed at the other boys' - or were they both men now? - attempt at humor. They'd come a long way since that first detention in the forbidden forest. The Slytherin had developed some small modicum of courage. If only he'd developed it sooner. A lot of lives could have been saved.

"He probably would be more frightening as an executioner." Harry admitted as he double checked the list of enchantments he copied down from _Secrets of the Darkest Art_ , and ensured the spells were still in place. "Unfortunately he's otherwise indisposed so the duty, as usual, falls to me."

Malfoy actually laughed at that. Not the usual sarcastic laugh, or the nervous laugh at his earlier joke, but actual heartfelt laughter. The kind he shared with him and Ron in the Slytherin common room so long ago, when he thought he was with friends. It was a far cry from his annoying, mightier-than-thou fake laughter he shared with the public. If he laughed like that all the time he really could have been the charming ring leader he always pretended to be.

When Harry turned around Draco's face contorted into understanding as his laughter died in his chest. Harry must have been a hideous sight. Five days without sleep delving into dark magic and trying to cram seven years worth of ancient rune knowledge into his skull couldn't have been good for his complexion. He hadn't looked in a mirror lately, but he imagined the dark circles under his eyes looked painted on.

"You're really going to kill me?"

He didn't bother answering the question.

"Why?"

He COULDN'T answer that one. How do you explain to somebody your intention to use them for a dark ritual? Somebody who always mocked you for your goody-two-shoes ways. That was leaving out his reasons for doing so. A few days ago he wouldn't have believed in the Deathly Hollows, yet he held two in his possession, unable to use one of them. The one he needed most. A year ago he wouldn't have believed in Horcruxes, yet here he was creating one.

"I saved you! I lied to aunt Bella for you."

Draco really wasn't good at the whole 'de-escalate a situation' thing. Harry thanked whatever god abandoned them that Draco never picked hostage negotiation as a career path.

"Fat lot of good it did for Ron and Hermione." Harry grumbled back as the last detection spell confirmed that the protections had taken hold.

"Oh come on! There was nothing I could do to protect..." Malfoy paused and seemed to actually consider his words. Would the wonders never cease? "Weasley? What happened to Weasley?"

Harry sighed as he sat on the edge of the sole remaining bed and looked his prisoner in the eye as he explained.

"The knife _Aunt Bella_ \- " He spat the endearing term " - used on them was cursed somehow. We couldn't stop the bleeding. He didn't make it either."

Malfoy's _"Oh shit!"_ face was priceless. He almost wished Colin was there to memorialize it. That and the rapid eye movements as Malfoy seemed to read notes floating in the air. Harry wondered if he ever did that, visibly deconstructing new information and piecing it together with what he already knew. Probably, he decided.

Draco let out a long breath as his face showed the same resignation Harry had worn ever since Ron said his last goodbye.

"What incredibly stupid plan are you resorting to, Potter?"

Harry granted the blonde man a raised eyebrow. He took the invitation to elaborate.

"Granger was the brains of your group. That's always been obvious."

Harry nodded.

"And Ron was the heart. Without them I'm just this side of useless."

Draco laughed again, but it wasn't genuine this time.

"What does that make you? The soul of your trio?"

"Hey. You said it, not me." Harry answered with a fake laugh of his own.

It was true. Without them he was lost. With those two at his side he was indestructible. Getting that goblet from Gringotts would be child's play, and he was proof positive the three could come up with some scheme to get caught by Voldemort on purpose and get close enough to Nagini to get rid of her too. They'd probably escape with nothing but a few scrapes to show for the adventure. But they were gone, and Voldemort had the wand. Without them he was just a soul without a heart or mind to direct it.

How apropos was it that he was sacrificing his very soul for the cause today? The only thing he ever had to offer.

"Do I even want to know what you're doing?"

Harry shook his head.

"I'd rather just talk." Harry confessed. "We have a few minutes. Maybe we can get some closure?"

And like that the real laughter returned. Harry could actually see the joke this time.

"What? Trying to console me? Trying to relieve me of all life's woes before you send me off?" Harry had never heard so much venom in Malfoy's voice before. "Save it for when we meet up on the other side. We'll have all eternity in the fires to talk it out. I'm sure I'll get over it eventually."

This time Harry let out a genuine laugh of his own, just as the chicken timer went off. The one Hermione once used for cooking eggs and which he now used to time a human sacrifice.

"See you in hell then?" Harry offered.

Draco nodded, showing off that infuriating smirk.

"I'll keep a spot warm for you."

It was a promise, then.

They were both silent for the rest of it as if in a state of utter peace. Draco looked so relaxed as the killing curse ended his life, and Harry didn't even scream when he cut into himself. He did scream when his split soul left his body.

People say your life flashes before your eyes when you die. How they'd know this was beyond him, but that's what it was like. It was as if his memories, his experiences and the emotions behind them, were cut into film and played before him, becoming dull and grey as they ceased to be his. Maybe it was his mind attempting to conceptualize what was happening but he could actually see the parts of him developing like moving photographs, and they were burning.

Not all of what made him, well, him, left in that moment. But enough of it did. And it hurt more than any wound or epll ever could.

Good thing the rest of the ritual didn't require him to be conscious.

* * *

"Hedwig, stop. I'll feed you later." Harry grumbled as the sensation of flapping wings on his face woke him up.

She always used to do that when he slept in, the impatient thing. How the normally nocturnal raptor started joining the noisier birds outside in harassing him was a mystery, but she did always manage to get him out of bed.

Except he wasn't in a bed. He was on the hard ground beside Draco Malfoy's corpse, and it wasn't Hedwig fluttering about.

"Huh. That's an unexpected development." Harry mumbled as the Snitch flitted about his face.

It worked. He had hoped that making into into a Horcrux would give the piece of his soul control over the internal mechanisms. That it would have enough control to bypass Dumbledore's enchantments and open. He didn't dare expect it to be able to fly by its own, intelligent will. Not that it was a competition, but he thought all of Tom's Horcruxes combined paled in comparison to this sole container of his, at least in mobility. The diary probably had it beat in communication, but barely.

 _Well... That sucked._

"It sure did." Harry said to the Snitch as the writing faded.

He wasn't a stranger to talking to himself, but this took it to a whole new level. At least the writing on the Snitch was in his own hand and not in the infuriatingly neat calligraphy of the late headmaster. And the new messages sure beat _'I open at the close'_.

 _We should get you healed up._

Harry waved the concern away and gave the Snitch - himself? - a 'give it to me' motion.

"It's time to find out if this was anywhere close to the realm of being worthwhile."

As his Horcrux opened and deposited the dark, cracked stone in his hand he knew it was. No price was too high to pay to get them back. And fate saw fit to only demand his innocence. That and a testicle, but he was equipped with a spare so he hoped he wouldn't miss it too much.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 **1) This was just an idea that I couldn't get out of my head and decided to bang out in a few spare hours. I wanted to think about what objects Harry would use to create his own Horcruxes in the hypothetical event he would follow in Voldemort's footsteps. This was the only believable scenario I could come up with where Harry would go through with it. Ron and Hermione died at malfoy manor and Harry escaped with draco in tow.**

 **2) I chose to go with self mutilation being the unspeakable act needed for creating a horcrux instead of the killing a pregnant woman theory.(Or the easily disproved theories of it being cannibalism or necrophilia.)**


	2. 2- Recovery

**Chapter 2:**

 **Recovery**

* * *

"Bloody hell, mate." The shade of Ronald Weasley gasped as he examined Harry's victim. "Have you lost your goddamn mind?"

Harry kept his silence. Partly due to his own shame at what he'd done, and partly because replacing the thick wad of gauze he'd barely managed to shove down his jock strap(which he decided ahead of time would be very necessary after the act of self-mutilation) took all of the concentration he had.

"I want to say the bastard deserved it, but I'd be lying."

Ron, having finished examining the deceased Malfoy heir, turned on the Snitch hovering beside Harry.

"Can it see me too?"

Harry turned to his other self as a new message appeared on its surface.

 _I can see through his eyes and hear through his ears._

Harry frowned.

"You can't see or hear anything on your own?" Ron questioned in Harry's stead.

 _Nope._

That didn't add up.

"Then how did you move around when I was unconscious?" Harry asked. "Do you have any means of, what's the word? - Perception?"

 _Kind of. It's like Echolocation? Maybe?_

"Echo-what?" Ron asked in bafflement.

Harry found himself explaining to his dead friend how bats and dolphins can map the world around them in their head based on sound. For once Ron was actually attentive in his listening.

"Wicked!" He gasped as Harry finished the explanation.

By now Harry had managed to drag himself onto the bed. Ron tried to help him in the effort before remembering he was incorporeal. He propped himself up with the mountain of pillows he'd brought along. Some of them still smelled like Ron and Hermione.

"But how are you able to see and hear what Harry does?"

 _Well we are the same person. It's kinda -_

The text cleared to make space for his Horcrux to continue

 _\- like when we see through Voldemort._

The text cleared again.

 _But clearer._

"Also wicked." Ron said.

He was getting over Harry's murdering a defenseless man and making a Horcrux pretty fast.

"So can Harry see through your echo-whatever?"

Now wasn't that an interesting prospect?

 _Could be. It takes a lot of concentration for -_

 _\- me to perceive what he does but being -_

 _disembodied might help with that._

"Okay we need to come up with some form of shorthand." Harry told the Snitch. "But we should definitely try that. Could be useful if I'm blindfolded, or blinded in general. I could keep you in my pocket and you can guide me."

Ron seemed to consider this.

"Can you also feel what Harry feels?"

 _Yes, and his injury is a lot more painful than he's_

 _\- letting on. Please call the elves._

Harry obliged.

"Dobby! Kreacher!"It hurt to yell.

The two popped into the tent as expected. Kreacher carrying a tray of piping hot soup, compliments of Misses Weasley nee Delacour, and Dobby carrying a tray with a single orange bottle on it. Harry recognized it as a Muggle pill bottle and gave the more hyperactive elf an inquisitive look.

"Dobby knew master Harry Potter Sir would be in pain. So Dobby ... borrowed painkillers from a pharmacy."

He sighed at the prospect of somebody stealing for him, but picked the bottle up to read the label without complaint. It was apparently called Codeine, and the warning labels announced its identity as an opioid. He didn't like the idea of potentially getting addicted to poppy based drugs, but he recognized the need for pain relief, and the drowsiness promised by the list of side-effects didn't sound so bad.

"Why are you using Muggle medicine?" Ron complained. "Surely you can get your hands on some potions to heal you up."

Harry shook his head as he took the soup tray from Kreacher and put the pill bottle aside. Best not to take it on an empty stomach after all.

"You can't magically heal or restore self-inflicted wounds made with magic." Harry explained. "You can only let them close and heal naturally. It's why You-Know-Who gave Wormtail a prosthetic, remember?"

That launched them into a discussion about how cursed items prevent magical healing and they were soon theorizing that the cursed objects somehow work on the logic that any person who finds themselves in a situation where they're being stabbed with a cursed knife, probably share some responsibility for getting into that situation. Like a wealthy man walking down a dangerous alley waving money around being partly responsible for his own mugging. They both disagreed with that logic, but curses are crafted to almost have a mind of their own and twist the effects of magic based on what amounted to abstract, subjective and bullshit philosophies craft by the caster. There's a reason constant use of dark magic causes insanity.

"You know we should really get Hermione in on this conversation. Can you bring back multiple people at once?" Ron suggested.

The Snitch retorted faster than Harry could.

 _Why? So you can dogpile us with more guilt?_

"Yeah I'm with me on this one. I'll talk to Hermione one on one before having you both here. Let her rant and rave for awhile before dealing with both of you together."

Dobby and Kreacher stood aside patiently all throughout the conversation but Dobby eventually piped up.

"Is Master Harry Potter Sir okay?" He breached. "Yous is talking to yourself and it worries Dobby."

Oops.

"Um. Right." Harry broached. "I'm talking to Ron. And no I'm not crazy. This rock here lets me talk to the dead."

He showed them the resurrection stone but they seemed unconvinced. He dismissed them and vowed to be more careful about talking to dead people in front of the living.

His soup finished, he took the Codeine and tried to relax into his bed. Ron was having none of it.

"So am I the first person you brought back?"

Harry nodded.

"Why? I figured you'd want to dig for answers first. Talk to Dumbledore or something."

"I brought you back because you're great at cheering me up." Harry confessed. "And it worked, until now."

"Oh." Ron said before going quiet.

He lay there in silence as he felt the strange cloudiness the opiate brought.

"Should I go?"

"Yes. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

* * *

The next week passed in much the same manner.

He brought Hermione back first the next morning and suffered through an hour long rant on how stupid his actions were. His haziness from the Codeine was the only reason he was able to survive the avalanche of words. When she finally simmered down she helped him command Dobby and Kreacher through getting some of his affairs in order.

With her instruction he commanded the elves to put Draco's body, which was already going through rigor mortis, into stasis to prevent it from decaying before having them apply proper antibiotics to his wounds. It took all of that day for her to convince him to let the elves stitch it up, which was uncomfortable in every way conceivable. She at least had the decency to look embarrassed as she directed Kreacher.

The day after that he was able to hobble around the tent with a walking stick he transfigured from the end table and he brought both of them back together for the first time.

"I have to agree with Ron. This is wicked." Hermione admitted as the Snitch-Horcrux flitted around her.

They'd just finished explaining the way it perceives the world around it.

"Well that makes sense. How else would the little thing know to avoid people and run away when chased?"

"I never exactly put much thought into the inner workings of a bludger." Ron replied. "All I ever cared about is the rules of the game and my teammates."

It was good to have them back. He was happy to just sit there eating cream of wheat in bed while they talked back and forth. His Horcrux did most of the talking for him allowing him to rest.

"So did you create two Horcruxes?" Hermione eventually broached, looking Harry dead in the eye.

 _What?_

"What?"

"Well the stone was in the Snitch when you turned it right?"

Harry nodded. The Snitch bobbed in what could be construed as a nod.

"So maybe it's a dual Horcrux."

Harry had to put down his breakfast and rub his temple.

 _Are you saying we split our soul three ways!_

"No. It would probably just make one Horcrux that was two pieces." Hermione offered.

 _Wouldn't that make me more vulnerable?_

"...Maybe." Hermione considered. "It could be that if either you or the ring is destroyed it destroys both of you. Or that both need to be destroyed."

Ron came to the rescue.

"Well we can't exactly risk testing that." He said. "We could try to destroy the stone conventionally, but if it isn't invulnerable we lose our greatest tool. If we try to use the sword we keep the stone but Harry goes mortal again and we lose the Snitch."

Ron was right, of course. He was planning to restore his soul eventually anyways. The process of doing so sounded even less appealing than creating a Horcrux in the first place, but he preferred that to destroying a piece of his own soul forever. He already missed being whole.

He lacked the words to explain this.

"The ring!" Hermione eventually gasped, leading Harry to wonder how she could do so without physical lung with which to gasp.

"I don't follow you." Ron and Harry echoed.

She rolled her eyes at them.

"You don't have to try and destroy the stone, just try to diffindo the band and if it breaks or fails to repair we can be reasonably certain the stone isn't a Horcrux too."

It was a good idea. There was just one problem with it.

"There was no band inside." Harry explained as he opened his hand, which he kept permanently clenched around the stone as of late. "Just the stone."

That cooled her enthusiasm.

"Oh... Check again?"

The Snitch opened up without further prompting and Harry took a closer look at its insides. He noticed a part of the cavity was a slightly faded shade of gold and what he'd mistook as part of the mechanism was in fact the band of the ring where the stone once sat. It was jammed in there pretty good but with some proper leverage he managed to yank it out.

One diffindo later and his fears of having a three part Horcrux was alleviated.

"Well that settles that." Ron muttered. "It might be best to repair it and reattach the stone so you don't have to work everything with a fist all the time."

Harry did so. He had to dismiss the two as he reattached the stone to the divot in the ring. When he next summoned them they remained by his side as he slid the ring on his middle finger.

"Much more comfortable." Harry told them. "So... what's the other side like?"

They both gave him a serious look. One he'd only seen them have when they prepared to give him bad news.

"We're not allowed to say, Harry." Ron apologized.

"We aren't even CAPABLE of saying. The laws governing the other side are stricter and stranger than the laws of magic." Hermione added, before seeming to worry that she'd said too much.

Harry apologized for asking. His curiosity had gotten the better of him. If he was honest with himself he expected that kind of response before he even broached the subject.

"So? Plans?" Ron suggested.

"Yes. I'd say some good old fashioned conspiracizing would do me a world of help right now." Harry said with a smile.

"We should probably stick to leaving Nagini for last, but the cup seems like a tall order. We need to find out what the mystery Horcrux is."

The Snitch bobbed at this.

 _Gryffindor or Ravenclaw?_

"That's the million galleon question isn't it?" Ron said.

At Hermione's insistence Harry took out a quill and parchment to write down names of people they could bring back to question. People who had known Voldemort or been related to him.

 _Hepzibah may have had something else?_

Harry added her name to the growing list right below Merope Gaunt and Tom Riddle Sr. He added Hokey, her house elf, below that along with Morfin and Marvolo Gaunt.

"Oh my goodness!" Hermione eventually shouted. "We're being so stupid!"

At Ron and Harry's inquisitive looks she continued.

"Why go through second-hand sources when we can go straight to the primary ones?"

At their blank stares she elaborated further.

"Gryffindor and Ravenclaw!" She exclaimed. "Why not just ask them?"

"Ohhh!" Ron and Harry echoed again.

Harry put the list aside and jumped onto that idea. It never even occurred to him that he could bring back the founders. Imagine what they could teach them? What magic has been forgotten in the interim since their death? There weren't even portraits of them in the headmasters office.

He held the resurrection stone daintily in his hand and turned it.

One.

Two.

Three.

"Rowena Ravenclaw."

The trio waited in silence. They were practically bouncing with excitement. As the seconds ticked by that excitement evaporated.

 _I don't think she's coming._

Harry tried again.

One.

Two.

Three.

"Godric Gryffindor."

Again. Nothing.

"Helga Hufflepuff? Salazar Slytherin? Arthur Pendragon? Merlin Ambrosius? Jesus of Nazareth! Fuck!"

With each failure he got more annoyed and at that last one it was all he could do to resist flinging the ring across the tent. The ever familiar silence returned as they all went deep into thought.

"Maybe it only brings back loved ones?" Ron eventually suggested.

"Or maybe they've been gone so long that their souls can no longer return?" Hermione offered.

"Or maybe they simply don't wish to come back." Harry countered. "Or they never existed at all."

The seconds ticked by as they all considered how to test these theories.

 _What does the book say about the stone?_

Harry retrieved Tales of Beedle the Bard from the beaded bag and after finding the page read aloud.

"Then the second brother, who was an arrogant man, decided that he wanted to humiliate Death still further, and asked for the power to recall others from Death. So Death picked up a stone from the riverbank and gave it to the second brother, and told him that the stone would have the power to bring back the dead."

Harry glanced between the others.

"Nothing in there about restrictions." Ron admitted. "Maybe try to bring back somebody you hate?"

All eyes landed on the corpse beside the bed, now wrapped in linen. That's a bad idea.

"Peter Pettigrew." Harry whispered to the ring as he turned it thrice more.

Lo and behold, he appeared.

"You're dismissed." Harry said to the traitor before he could sputter the confused question on his lips.

So that idea was out.

"Let's try to bring back someone we know died a long time ago." Hermione suggested. "But who we know was real."

 _Ghosts?_

They looked between the Snitch and each other. Now wasn't that an interesting experiment? What would happen if they used the stone on somebody whose ghost they had met? If a new shade appeared would that prove ghosts aren't what they seemed to be? It was worth a try.

"Sir Nicholas De Mimsy-porpington."

For a moment nothing happened and Harry worried that it failed again. But he noticed the stone felt suddenly cold against his palm and he couldn't stop the shudder rising up his spine.

Nearly Headless Nick didn't so much appear as he did crash through the canopy, stopping suddenly in front of him. If Harry were to theorize, he would guess that the Gryffindor house ghost had just flown the entire distance from Hogwarts to their tent in a matter of seconds as if dragged against his will by a long cable.

"WHAT IN MERLIN'S SAGGING BALL SACK DID YOU THREE JUST DO!"

Whoa.

"Um. Well. We." Hermione grasped for an explanation.

"He did it!" Ron yelled, pointing at Harry.

Bastard.

"Mister Potter." Sir Nicholas greeted by way of an exasperated sigh. "Why is it always you?"

Harry swallowed, suddenly fearful of a ghost for the first time since the day he was sorted.

"I've been asking myself that same question for years sir."

Nearly headless Nick deflated at that, and his head stopped wobbling as he cooled off.

"Please explain."

Harry pointed at the ring.

"Resurrection stone."

"Beg your pardon?" Said the ghost.

"Resurrection stone. Ancient powerful artifact capable of dragging the souls of the dead back to this side. I say the name and they appear."

Sir Nicholas approached skeptically and eyed the ring.

"Your adventures take you to truly strange places, you know that Mister Potter?"

He had no answer for that.

"Why did you call me here?"

"Sir Nicholas?" Hermione broached, getting the ghosts' attention. "We were trying to speak to the founders but they wouldn't answer, so we were trying to test its limits."

Sir Nicholas seemed to consider her for a moment.

"You do know Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin were their titles, not their actual names?"

They did now.

"Oh! Well can you tell us what their names were?" Ron asked.

"No."

"Well why not?" Ron moaned.

"Because I don't know it myself." Nearly Headless Nick admitted. "People in those days kept their surnames secret, using titles in public. Names have power, as this ring of yours demonstrates."

Well that solves that mystery. Harry, deciding not to question how the House Ghost could see Ron and Hermione, apologized and dismissed him. He vanished instantly and Harry could only hope the stone returned him to the castle. That answers their unasked question on the nature of ghosts.

"I've never seen him so angry." Hermione said just above a whisper.

"I didn't even know he could do angry." Ron added.

* * *

Their interviews with the dead brought up no new information regarding possible Horcruxes.

They kept their questions for the depressing Merope and her antagonistic relatives to heirlooms and artifacts of power. He dared not ask them their opinions on the state of things. Hepzibah smith was likewise useless, but did share with them the rumored powers of the Hufflepuff goblet.

It was somewhat underwhelming to think its only special properties were purification of liquids and fomentation of friendship between those who drank from it. Harry wondered if Voldemort turning it into a container somehow reversed these effects to where it would do the opposite, foment war between those who drake from it and poison liquids. He wasn't willing to drink from it to find out, assuming he ever got his hands on it.

They wasted another two days interviewing the dead, and in that time Harry finally recovered enough to walk unaided. He started every morning by gingerly testing his wound by stretching and knew he still had a ways to go before he made a full recovery. On Hermione's insistence he started weaning himself off the Codeine by cutting the pulls in half and then a quarter before taking them. They weren't sure if a single week was long enough to develop dependency, but they weren't willing to find out.

"Harry would you please just talk to Dumbledore already?"

Harry groaned at Hermione's insistent pestering. She truly believed he couldn't deny her forever, and she was wrong. Harry just knew the first thing their late headmaster would say is how he was meant to open the Snitch. Somehow he suspected the answer was going to make him feel like an idiot, and the disappointment in the old man's eyes would surely push him over the edge.

"If he knew he would have told me, Herm." He countered. "And I don't want to talk to him."

In the hours when he neared sleep and slowly woke up he would attempt to breach the connection between himself and ... himself. He was having marginal success seeing what the Snitch saw. It wasn't anything like echo-location. It was more like the sensation of touch, as if the Snitch had a magical field around it with which it could feel things in the room, especially things that moved. This is what he was trying to practice now.

"Then what are we going to do?" Ron asked, breaking Harry's meditative mood further, "The cup and Nagini are out of reach and we can't figure out what the mystery Horcrux is."

Harry sighed and gave up in his attempt at whatever mind art he was in the process of inventing.

"I'm going to recover and get stronger." Harry told them. "This is no longer just a hunt for Horcruxes. I'm a killer now and I have a lot of targets, more dangerous ones than him."

They all glanced at the proof of his crime for what must have been the thousandth time. Hermione looked like she wanted to contradict his claim of being a killer, but she'd tried and failed to console him enough times to not bother again.

"What are we going to do with him?" Ron asked.

"I dunno." Harry confessed. "I've been thinking. But everything I come up with is just too cruel."

Hermione glowered at him.

"Just tell us! We can't afford to be horrified anymore."

Sometime the girl just made sense.

"I was thinking about using it either to negotiate a trade of some kind with his parents, what for I don't know." He admitted. "Other than that I was thinking about making a gruesome example. Death eaters are fond of making public displays of their victims and I thought I'd return the favor."

He waited for the tirade of complaints and counter-arguments about how horrible that was, but it never came. Ron even looked like he was debating the merits of it in his head.

"I also thought about... practicing more things from the book."

"What book!" Hermione snapped.

Harry nodded to the lump of black, faded leather.

"Inferi?" Hermione asked, just above a whisper.

"Yeah." Harry answered, just as quietly. "There's a bit on how to create and control them in there. Among other things."

They returned to staring off into space. How have things changed so much that they were even contemplating such actions?

"We should take inventory." Ron said.

Harry looked at him.

"All of your assets. Let's just list them out and see if any ideas come up."

Harry obliged and, turning over the list of crossed-out names, wrote everything down.

 **Resurrection Stone**

 **Death's Invisibility Cloak**

 **Sword of Gryffindor(Basilisk Venom infused)**

 **Slytherin's Locket**

 **Cursed Knife**

 **Marauder's Map**

 **Horcrux Snitch**

 **Deluminator**

 **Radio**

 **4 1/2 wands.**

 **Mirror Shard**

 **Fake Locket**

 **Mokeskin Pouch**

 **Beaded Handbag**

 **Pretty much every school book ever**

 **Too many clothes**

 **Phineas Black Portrait**

 **Perkin's Tent**

 **Secrets of the Darkest Art**

 **Tales of Beedle the Bard**

 **Three months worth of food.**

 **Codeine**

 **Draco Malfoy's Corpse**

He had a lot more than he realized, and yet so very little. He rummaged in his pockets to add however much money he had and noticed a few coins out of place.

 **DA coins, 3**

Somehow he completely forgot about those.

"What about allies?" Ron prodded.

 **Kreacher and Dobby**

 **Bill and Fleur Weasley**

 **Griphook**

 **Ollivander**

 **Xenophilius and Luna**

 **Hogwarts Students(Can't reach)**

 **Surviving Order Members(Unknown)**

The second list was much more sobering than the first. Still, it was better than he first imagined.

"Places we have access to?"

And so they continued. Ordering and reordering their assets and coming up with possible uses for them. Eventually he had an entire stack of papers, each one devoted to an individual asset. While ideas on using the fake locket to lure Voldemort into a trap were interesting it, and the genuine locket, were put aside for later schemes.

They decided it was best to keep certain items on his person at all times. With some alterations to his cloak, which took Hermione two days to teach him how to do, he had the deluminator, cursed knife, two of the wands, and Gryffindor's sword all within arms reach. He practiced retrieving them with Ron who treated the practice like a Quidditch drill. He would call out the name of the object and Harry would draw it. A few more modifications and the invisibility cloak fit inside of an enlarged pocket and he could cover himself with it at a moment's notice.

The ring never left his finger.

"I think we should try to find out how many order members are left." Hermione broached as Harry finished a set of jumping jacks without pain.

"How do you figure we do that?" Ron asked.

She glanced at Harry with the telltale hesitation.

"Well. We could use the ring to..."

"No." Harry interrupted.

"But it would only take ..."

"No." He said, more emphatically this time.

Attempting to recall each person one by one to find out which were dead would kill him and he knew it.

"We need allies Harry!" Hermione exploded.

"I know."

"And where do you suggest we go get them?"

"I don't know." He confessed. "But right now I think I could be more effective alone."

Understanding slowly dawned on Hermione.

"You want to study?"

That was one way of putting it.

"Just study?" Ron complained.

"Training." Harry explained waving the ring in front of his friends. "We have access to the greatest minds of our era. Many will happily help me learn how to be a more effective warrior."

There really wasn't much else he could do. The hunt for the Horcruxes was on hold and he couldn't get into Hogwarts to recover his friends. Even if he could, what then? They weren't killers. They would all die for him, just as he would for them, just as Ron and Hermione already had. But would they kill for him? He wasn't so sure.

"I suppose we should start with the madman himself?" Ron suggested.

Harry grinned. Yeah. If you wanted training, you couldn't do better than "Alastor Moody."

The shade of Alastor Moody wasn't what they expected. He had two legs for one. And both of his naturally dark eyes. And Smooth skin.

"Did we get the wrong person?" Ron voiced what they were all thinking.

"Nope. It's me." Said Moody, his gruff voice the same as always. "And you better have a good ass reason for interrupting the sloppy blowjob I was getting from the resident seraphim up there."


	3. 3- War Now, Remorse Later

**Chapter 3:**

 **War Now, Remorse Later**

* * *

"ARE YOU COMPLETELY FUCKING RETARDED!" Moody exploded at him.

Somehow the fact that Moody couldn't actually touch him went forgotten as Harry flinched away from the accusatory finger in his face. He was tempted to dismiss Ron and Hermione but they didn't look like they planned to join Moody in yelling at him.

"I know. I know. Making a Horcrux was dumb, but..."

"Horcrux?" Moody said confusedly. "I'm not mad at you for making a bloody Horcrux."

"You're not?"

"No! It was a brilliant move. And it worked. Clearly."

"But I killed an unarmed prisoner to do it!"

"Yeah... And?"

Harry glanced to his friends but they looked as clueless as he felt.

"That goes against every code of conduct and every moral fiber of my being!" Harry ranted.

"And the Geneva convention." Hermione added helpfully.

Now moody was looking at them like THEY were the ones who thought murdering a barely of age wizard to create a Horcrux was perfectly above-board.

"Are you familiar with the phrase 'All is fair in love and war'?" Moody said in as demeaning a tone Harry had ever heard.

They all nodded.

"Well it's not just a worthless piece of sophistic pablum quoted ad infinitum, it has real weight, meaning and truth to it." Moody explained. "Here's another one, a quote you ought to take to heart. 'The only tactics the allied forces didn't use in the great war was cannibalism and torture, and only then because they were of questionable effectiveness'."

Harry imagined that would be the man's favorite saying. If it was shorter it would surely be his most oft used catchphrase, even above 'CONSTANT VIGILANCE!'.

"But, it was wrong! I used dark magic!"

Moody's scowl was oddly more effective without the scars. And his baby talk voice was even more infuriating than Bellatrix's.

"Yes, and I'm sure that makes you very sad." His lip even trembled in mock sorrow. "I tell ya what, when the war is over you can waste time worrying about your immortal soul. There are plenty of coping mechanisms out there for us war veterans. You can learn to drown your sorrows in a bottle of firewhisky, numb the pain by popping more of those pills or bury your rage for the world in that Weasley tarts' pussy. I don't care what you..."

His rant was cut short by the objections of his pupils.

"That's my sister you sick old man!"

"Don't talk about Ginny that way!"

"What's wrong with you!""

"SHUT UP!" Moody yelled back.

He was much better at being loud than they were.

"God you three are sensitive. Look, the point is, busybody moralizing is for the politicians and the women. If anybody wants to tell you what you did was wrong then you be sure and tell them to go use an erumpet horn as a suppository." Moody explained. "War now, remorse later. I expect you to do whatever it takes to win, even if you have to kill Death Eaters with your teeth and nails. No. I'm not mad you killed the pathetic ferret or created a soul container. I'm pissed that you did so inefficiently."

The Gryffindor trio went back to glancing at each other in confusion.

"How could I have done it more efficiently?" Harry asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer. "I need everything else on a daily basis and in battle, a testicle is much less expensive in the here and now than say, my nose. And I don't want to walk around looking and smelling like Vol... You-know-who."

He almost slipped there. It would be a shame to get caught because of that taboo now.

"You really are that stupid, huh?" Moody said with a shake of his head and a face-palm. "To think Dumbledore had so much faith in you. Let me spell this out for you Potter."

He cleared his throat and rubbed his hands together dramatically.

"You could have sacrificed an eye and replaced it - " He paused to jab a finger at his own left eye " - with a better one."

"OHHHH!" The trio chorused.

Now it was Harry's turn to face-palm.

"Oops."

"Yeah! Oops is right." Moody roared. "Now you're going to have to fight a war with lower testosterone, very useful in a fight mind you, and follicle stimulating hormones, which you'll sorely miss later in life. Assuming you live long enough to regret this decision."

"Follicle stimulating hormones?" Ron questioned.

"Yeah. The testes release hormones controlling hair growth." Hermione explained, again helpfully.

Another thing Harry wished he knew beforehand. The others let him groan to himself in silence for a few minutes after that bombshell.

"So. Who recovered my body?" Moody broached. "Please tell me they didn't bury the eye with the rest of me."

And here comes another conversation Harry hadn't looked forward to.

"We weren't able to recover you." Ron explained.

"Yeah. The ministry got your eye. That toad fitted her door with the thing so she could spy on her employees." Hermione added.

They were learning a whole host of new swear words from Moody today. At this point Harry would have to start writing them down.

"Well you should have planned out a way to steal it back before going along with this whole self-harm phase." Moody grumbled. "Though I suppose I should give credit where it's' due. It was smart of you to leave it there. It would have set off a whole host of alarms if you'd snatched it without preparation, I'm sure."

Harry decided not to correct him on his assumption. He knew praise from the grizzled Auror would be scarce in the future.

"We did manage to get it back." Harry said, adding - "I went back for it." - as a white lie.

The other two had no means of contradicting him. He never told them he snatched the damn thing.

"Well bully for you!" Moody said, both genuinely and sarcastically in that way only he seemed capable of saying things. "Where is it? Let me see if you've taken good care of it. Probably not, it's a right pain in the ass to maintain but I'll forgive that."

"We don't have it anymore." Harry confessed.

And like that the small bit of pride vanished from Moody's face.

"I may have, sort of, kinda... buried it." Harry winced even as the words came tumbling out.

"... You buried it?" Moody clarified, dragging the words out.

"Yeaaaaah."

"Why would you ever do that?"

Harry couldn't believe how stupid the next words out of his mouth sounded, even to him.

"Well, we never got the chance to bury you so I... made a little grave for your eye."

Moody tried to sit down to get over his shock, before he himself was reminded that he was incorporeal which only seemed to make him angrier. He settled for yelling at Harry some more.

"Go out there, find whatever pathetic memorial you made, and GET MY EYE BACK YOU OVERLY SENTIMENTAL, OPIUM-ADDLED, MORON!"

* * *

Fortunately Harry had set up his tent in Dartmoor at the edge of the woods where the Quidditch world cup had been held. He found the gnarled tree in mere minutes. The small cross he gouged in the bark confirmed it was the correct spot and he dug up the eye with a single flick of Draco's wand.

One again he checked the surrounding area for any visitors. He chose this location for his ritual and recovery in the hopes that some Hogwarts student or another would think to visit it during their spring break for their own private Quidditch practice. He remembered Katie suggesting they do so once, in the hopes that some of the mojo of the professional players that had wowed them all would rub off. Sadly, no visitors came, and it was by far the worst Easter he had ever experienced.

He realized with a chuckle that he had attempted to resurrect Christ on the memorial of his first resurrection. Now wasn't that ironic?

With Moody's instruction he sent Dobby to 'borrow' a large bottle of contact lens solution from the same pharmacy he got the codeine from. A bit of polishing later and the pristine eye sat submerged in a cup of the solution and once again swiveled on its own accord.

"Well if we ever need to make a second Horcrux, we know which body part to use." Ron joked.

Harry didn't laugh at it though. But a thought did occur to him.

"Are You-Know-Who's eyes prosthetic?"

The question was directed at Moody and both he and Hermione seemed to consider it.

"Well. If we assume Voldemort..."

They all hissed at the name, even Harry. He leaped into action by packing up the tent and checking the wards.

"I'm a shade, idiot boy!" Moody tried to stop him. "The taboo won't detect me saying Voldemort."

Harry didn't bother waiting to find out. He finished packing up and apparated to a new location. He couldn't recall which patch of woods these were but it didn't matter. He placed all of the wards he could manage in record time before setting the tent back up.

"Well. Good reaction time at least." Moody eventually complimented.

Harry nodded to the shade as he and the others reappeared. It was good to know they didn't travel with him when he apparated.

"And I'd been there for almost two weeks anyways. Too long to stay in one place."

Moody nodded his approval.

"Anyways. As I was saying. If we assume TOM, managed to make all six of the Horcruxes he planned then we can infer he sacrificed both testicles, probably his phallus too."

"No." Harry interrupted. "The phallus can't be used for the ritual. It has to be a sensory organ, a vital organ or a fertility organ, like the testes or ovaries."

Moody seemed to consider this, and nodded as if to say that made sense to him.

"Okay. So the testes, the nose, obviously."

"Obviously." The other three agreed in unison.

"That makes three. I would also wager he sacrificed all of his natural skin and the nerve endings, which would count as a sensory organ and would explain why his skin is so..."

They all motioned for him to continue, as they themselves lacked the words to describe Voldemort's appearance.

"And that makes four. So yes, I'd say he sacrificed an eye apiece for two of his Horcruxes and got replacements." He concluded.

The Snitch, who had kept quiet up until this point, decided to make itself known by bobbing in a way that demanded attention.

 _The locket had an eye in it._

It took Harry a moment to figure out what Other Harry was talking about.

"That's right!" Ron exclaimed. "And it was a living, healthy eye. HIS original eye."

They had to retell the story of how they destroyed the locket Horcrux near the pond, leaving out the part where Voldemort showed an illusion of Harry and Hermione practically shagging on the forest floor.

"Wait. It had two eyes?" Hermione clarified.

"Yeah." Harry concluded. "One in both halves of the locket."

"So he had to sacrifice both eyes for the locket?" Hermione clarified. "Makes sense. And that explains why he has no ears. But why is a single testicle suitable enough but a single eye or ear isn't?"

They looked to the expert on combating dark wizards to explain that one.

"There are several factors determining the 'value' of a sacrifice when it comes to dark arts." Moody obliged to explain. "The symbolical significance, how painful it is to sacrifice, and so on. Sacrificing a testicle is much more painful than a single eye AND is symbolically more powerful. You're not just sacrificing a part of yourself, you're sacrificing half of all descendants you would ever have."

Harry chose to accept that logic, nonsensical as it was.

"So we should avoid making a second Horcrux with your eyes as sacrifice." Hermione concluded. "Unless there's another one of these prosthetics laying around."

"Or how about we avoid making a second Horcrux full stop!" Harry snapped at her before Moody could reply.

"Come on mate." Ron said, trying, and failing, to calm him down with a pat on the shoulder. "Imagine how wicked it would have been for the Snitch to open up and reveal a big ol eye! It would scare the pants off of the most hardened Death Eater."

Harry rose to his feet as soon as the word 'eye' left Ron's lips. Moody and Hermione's eureka expressions mirrored his own as he walked over to the end table holding the glass of water. He eyed the Snitch quizzically.

 _What?_

"What?" Ron echoed.

Harry held up the glass and the swiveling eye within to compare its size to that of the Snitch.

 _Ooooooh._

"There's no way that would work." Ron said. His smirk contradicted his denial. "Do it."

Harry held out a hand and his Horcrux landed obediently. It opened up as he fished the jet-blue eye out of the glass and placed it into the cavity. It was a perfect fit.

"Pour some solution in there." Moody instructed.

Harry did so, holding the Snitch at an angle to make sure he filled it all the way before letting it close. Harry shuddered at the sound of the eye swiveling from inside the tiny sphere. He didn't dare attempt breaching their connection as it flew out of his grasp and hovered before him.

"Well?" Moody demanded.

The Snitch was still, save for the fluttering of its bumblebee-like wings.

 _I CAN SEE!_

* * *

They spent the rest of the day testing his Horcrux' sight.

Moody warned Harry not to try to shift perspectives, yet, as it would be disorienting and took some getting used to. The Snitch would occasionally crash into things as it came to rely on its vision instead of its normal senses and it eventually learned to always keep the eye pointing forwards while moving, only rotating it when hovering in place.

They also discovered that snitches have the ability to disillusion themselves for short stints.

Hermione deduced that they draw in the ambient magic that witches and wizards put off - apparently they do that - to power the built in enchantments. The more ambient magic around, the faster it can fly, the wider its area of perception and the longer it can stay disillusioned. Harry absolutely salivated at the thought of how much more challenging the Snitch at the world cup must have been to catch than the ones at Hogwarts.

That was how normal Snitches work. His drew magical power directly from Harry through their connection. This allowed it to see with Moody's eye - which was more magically taxing than he ever would have expected - and it allowed the thing to remain disillusioned almost indefinitely. The only time Harry felt significant drain through the connection was when they ran a speed test by pitting it against Harry and his Firebolt. The Snitch won.

The more they experimented with the Snitch, the more they realized how superior his Horcrux was to all of Voldemort's.

"That's because you designed yours with function in mind." Moody explained. "Volde - ahem, Tom created his with fashion in mind."

"If you ever make another one, be sure to commission some Muggle machinist to create an automaton with rocket fists and shoulder mounted gatling lasers." Ron joked.

Harry, unfortunately, had a mouthful of chicken at the time and choked half to death. They nearly put his own Horcrux' ability to keep him anchored to the world of the living on a test run as well.


	4. 4 - Training

****Chapter 4:****

 ** **Training****

* * *

The next month flew past Harry in a blur of hellacious training and a great deal of yelling. For once time's uncanny ability to move faster wasn't tied to his apprehension up an upcoming trial but instead because of genuine enjoyment.

Harry liked training. It may have been difficult, sure, but it was also simple. Repetitive. Routine.

"It takes three months to properly train an Auror. Normally this training consists of classes on legalese, operational procedure, hand to hand combat, wanded combat and detective work." Moody had explained that first day. "Naturally with the complete destruction of the legitimacy of law that first one is out, second one too, and if Dumbledore's stories about how you three spent the last seven years role-playing the Riverdale gang from Archies Wierd Mysteries..."

"How do you even..." Hermione interrupted but Moody interrupted her back.

"I spent a lot of time bugging out in Muggle homes. Didn't have much to keep me entertained beyond reading their books and I just happened to keep finding myself in homes with well read children." He explained.

"Let the man speak, would you Betty?" Harry told Hermione.

"Oh shut up, Veronica!" She hissed back leaving a very confused Ron out of the joke.

"Anyways." Moody went on as if they hadn't interrupted. "You're all damn good at the detective work so I won't waste your time with that. This leaves hand to hand and wanded combat."

And so that's what he learned.

The repetitive movements of practicing knife and sword strikes was his favorite. He just worked his way through a clock formation - 12 to 6, 1 to 7 etc - with both weapons for an hour. Switching up the order as Moody saw fit.

During his breaks between doing this and wand combat drills Moody would repeat historical and personal stories and demand Harry draw conclusions and lessons from them.

"In 1946 a man claiming to be a private investigator handed a woman on the subway a camera." One such story went. "He asked her to take a picture of somebody so he could keep his cover. Turns out the camera was a sawed-off shotgun, our private investigator was a mafia gangster and the woman being photographed was his ex-wife. What can you learn from this story?"

"We should resurrect Al Capone and have him do our mission planning, that's what." Ron had said.

Moody refused to tutor him at all except one on one after that.

His magical training left a lot to be desired, at least in his opinion. Moody didn't teach him a single new spell, but instead made him practice the ones he already knew. Still, he appreciated the simplicity of the exercises.

He would practice spells as the Snitch attempted to dodge. Fortunately they started before Ron's poorly timed joke and Hermione was there to suggest they remove the eye first. Just because his Horcrux was impervious to damage didn't mean everything inside of it was safe from being knocked around and concussed.

Honestly that just increased the mileage of their training. Harry practiced his spellwork, the Snitch developed mastery of its new senses and evasive skills. Harry improved his speed, endurance and stamina while the Snitch improved in maneuverability and spell identification.

Moody divided his spell practice into four categories.

Offensive spells, which included stunning, bludgeoning, cutting, piercing and explosive spells with crucio thrown in for added measure. Disarming spells, which lead to Moody forcing him to include the relashio and finger removing jinx to his itinerary. Stalling spells, which amounted to tripping jinxes, the langlock spell and impedimenta. And finally capture spells like petrificus and incarcerous

They avoided using the killing curse because they weren't willing to risk damaging or destroying the Horcrux with it. Which, though unlikely, was possible with a particularly powerful Avada Kedavra. They also didn't bother with shielding charms because Harry was already too good with them.

He would practice a combination of spells from each type until he was exhausted, at which point Moody would go into one of his stories.

Aside from this all Harry ever did in his free time was practice wand movements for the spells Moody demanded he get faster at and meditate to bridge or close the gap between himself and the Snitch. He told himself he was developing the skill of using Moody's eye and plain old occlumency - and maybe legilimency - but the improvements were meager at best.

He'd keep Ron and Hermione around for conversation as he did so.

"So you aren't denying that beautiful winged fellatio efficianatos await me on the other side?" Harry teased Hermione midway through one such conversation.

Whatever rules governed the dead made it impossible for them to tell him what waited in the beyond, sure, but it also made it impossible for them to deny claims about it in order to prevent the living from figuring anything out by process of elimination.

"Look, if it were true, Moody wouldn't have been able to say it! He was clearly joking or just being his obnoxiously offensive self!" She eventually concluded as if that settled the discussion.

Which Harry supposed it did.

Moody insisted that he not train on weekends so he spent that time rereading all of his old textbooks. He managed to get through the first three years in a single weekend of rest, which surprised even him. Hermione went ahead and tested his knowledge, which was made awkward by the need to hold the book open for her and turn to the correct pages without looking at it.

He had a better grip on the fundamental theories than he thought, and when he didn't understand the material, Hermione would assign him the task of rereading a chapter or two per book on things he missed in that oh so bossy voice of hers.

He barely got through his fourth year coursework the second weekend. This didn't surprise Harry in the slightest. He spent half his fourth year studying sixth and seventh year magic, and studying it badly. He hadn't even taken the end of year exams because of the tournament, and he was all the better and worse for it. Better prepared for war, worse prepared for life in general.

Moody bumped up the difficulty on that third week. It was exactly the same as the previous two weeks, save for the fact that he had to cast all spells nonverbally.

Half of the points he lost for Gryffindor last year was solely because of his failure to cast nonverbally in Snape's sham of a defense class. Everyone lost a lot of points because of that, Slytherins included for a change.

Harry wasn't terrible at it, but he wasn't good enough to continuously cast every offensive spell he knew nonstop for an hour. Let alone do so multiple times a day. By the end of the week he became that good, which he owed to Moody dropping his knife and sword training to make room for more nonverbal practice. It sucked, but it was worth it.

He richly earned that weekend off, but still spent it going over past coursework. He had no difficulty with his fifth year coursework, having not had proper Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons or a worthwhile book to go with. He didn't bother with reviewing divination or history from the prior years and was tempted to do so then because of his newfound free time, but he decided life was too short to waste another moment on either subject.

It was then, on that final week, that Moody actually taught Harry something.

Spell chaining. What a concept!

"It's a very simple principle, in fact I've already seen you do it on accident while running on pure muscle memory." Moony had said. "What you do is cast a spell, and then cast another spell that begins with the movement the previous spell ended on. I'd demonstrate but I lack the physical presence to do so, so I'll just instruct you."

Harry nodded as he drew his wand.

"Cast alohomora and then cast herbivicus, however, use the downward movement at the end of the unlocking charm as the starting downward movement of the plant growth charm."

Harry did exactly that. He wasn't able to see the first spell take effect, having not been pointing it towards a lock at the time, but he felt the magic leave him and it at least felt right. To his mild surprise the spot of grass he cast herbivicus on bloomed into dandelions. He only did half the wand movement necessary and yet it worked. Ideas on how many movements transferred between spells, such as one spell with five movements sharing the last three in order as the first three or all of another. He'd have to try it.

"Good work. Now dismiss me and practice chaining spells together two by two. Call me back once you've exhausted every combination of spells you know and practiced them into muscle memory. Should take all day."

And it did. He understood immediately why Moody hammered nonverbal casting so hard. In most cases he couldn't even speak the incantations fast enough for chained spells, but he _could_ think them fast enough.

The temptation to move onto chains of three or more spells was overbearing, especially when he wrote down a list of all spell combinations and marked the ones that chained. The name of a third spell that would connect a non-chaining pair would pop into his head as if forced there by a legilimens.

He had a little difficulty casting some spells nonverbally, having only practiced combative spells up until this point, but managed to work through it. His teacher did say every combination of spells he knew, after all.

"Good. Now practice them three by three, four by four and five by five." Moody had said the next day after Harry demonstrated his progress.

Harry went one step further and wrote down lists of six by six through ten by ten combinations until he had a whole notebook worth of spell chains. That took him the remainder of the week.

"Good. Now you need to practice chaining every single spell you know into one long chain, no repeats. And then practice chaining nonstop with as few repeating patterns as possible." Moody ordered him that Friday night.

"But I thought you told me not to work on weekends." Harry complained, surprisingly eager to revisit the previous years coursework.

Moody only shrugged.

"I changed my mind. Now chop chop."

And so Harry chopped. The first was more of a puzzle challenge than an exercise and it took him nearly an hour to figure out the combination with quill and paper. Hermione could have probably worked out the chain in ten minutes but he wanted to do it alone.

He practiced the nearly two hundred spell long chain all that Saturday. He practiced it slow and verbally. Then slow and nonverbally. Then he increased the speed, bit by bit. As the hours drew on he didn't even need to refer to the long piece of parchment where he wrote out the order of casting or the absurdly long mnemonic he invented for it.

When he finally mastered the final chain he realized it was nearing sundown, and yet he was only marginally tired as opposed to the bone deep exhaustion he crawled into bed with that first week. Its amazing what ten hours of exercise a day can do for your physical and magical endurance.

Moody observed him cast nonstop that Sunday, offering pointers on environmental awareness and tighter wand movements as he did so. He even taught him a few dueling freints to practice, where he'd make it look like he was chaining to a recognizable spell then switch to another midway. On that final day he mastered the subtle art of breaking chains in order to conjure a shield. The secret to this art was simply that there was no art to it at all.

"Get your ass into dodge and summon your shield when you need to." Moody told him. "Its better to remain vigilant and dodge so you don't have to, but we all make mistakes. Your shields are there to ensure you don't die when you do so."

It was the next day, Monday the 18th of May 1998, that Moody cut his training short.

"But I thought you said it took three months to properly train an Auror." Harry said, making his confusion known.

"I'm aware." Moody said simply. "But I think it's high time you saw some action."

That certainly raised Harry's mood.

"So am I the equivalent of a fully trained Auror now?" Harry dared to ask.

Now that raised Moody's mood.

"You really are retarded." He managed to say between his bouts of laughter. "No, boy. We just don't have three whole months of time to waste. You're good enough to get something done."

As if to insinuate he hadn't been getting anything done before?

"Well how would you rank me compared to the Ministry Aurors I'd come across?"

"Oh modern Aurors? You absolutely shit on them." Moody told him. "I specified properly trained Aurors, which are a very different thing."

Ah. So it was his rose-tinted nostalgia goggles altered version of Aurors he was comparing Harry to. That stung significantly less.

"You do have a few traits developed well in advance of even veteran Aurors." Moody went on. "You've got amazing instincts and reflexes and experience to spare with every type of danger imaginable. What you sorely lack is proper dueling training, a finished Hogwarts education and the paper side of Auror work."

It had been a long since Harry last blushed from a compliment, but he felt one creeping up now.

"And I'm not saying this to kiss your ass, Potter!" Moody warned him with an authoritative finger. "I'm telling you this so you realize just how much ridiculously high potential you have. Because I've bit my tongue as I watched it go to waste these last three years and if you only brought me back to continue watching you do so, please, just send me back to hell now."

Harry straightened up and with a clenched jaw, nodded. A nonverbal promise made between the two.

"Now. Don't tell me what your plan is, just pick a target and take em out. I will watch and give you feedback. Choose whatever you thinm is easiest." Moody said.

Harry nodded again.

"I think I know just where to start."

* * *

 **Responses:**

 **Man of Constant Sorrow** : Wrote

The fact that Hermione is dead, ruining any chance of harmony, is a distraction for me, but the overall story is quite good. I look forward to reading more.

 **Response** :

Harry/Hermione definitely isn't my favorite pairing, but if enough people really want this Harry with this Hermione I could make that happen. It will be tragic and disgusting watching him delve into the darkest arts to try and bring her back, body and soul, and definitely won't have a happy ending but I could do it.

There really is no pairing planned for this story. Its Harry becoming a dark lord if you missed the description.


	5. 5: New Tactics

**Chapter 5**

 **New Tactics**

* * *

Narcissa stood there shivering, her arms wrapped around herself for warmth.

Lucius didn't bother reminding her that she was a witch and that warming charms existed as he approached. Nor did he insist she go inside to the heat of the blazing fireplace for sleep. It would be too hypocritical, even for him.

His wife had opted to keep watch at the gate to their manor at night while he took the day. Yet he had stood beside the window of their bedroom staring out at her as she herself stared out down the cobblestone road and small woods beyond.

He couldn't sleep. She couldn't sleep. Not without the warmth of the other in that bed, and not while Draco remained missing.

"He's a smart boy." He told his wife as he came up behind her. "He'll find his way home."

He knew the empty platitudes missed the mark, how could she believe him if even he didn't? Still, she leaned back into him that way she does when she wanted to be held. He obliged, wrapping his arms around her stomach with a sigh.

He could have collapsed then and there in blissful sleep. Hard gravel be damned.

"It's been almost two months, Lucy."

He fought the growl back down his throat at the sound of that name. She was the only person, man or woman, back in their school days who could get away with calling him that. At least without having their teeth kicked in.

"Biding his time. Planning. I daresay he's joined Potter." He told her. "He's our only hope now too. Together they could take on ten dark lords."

Now wasn't that an idea? Wouldn't that be grand? To see their son standing with Harry Potter, fighting side by side and correcting the terrible mistakes of previous generation. The thought of it filled him with pride.

"That or faking an alliance and waiting for an opportubity to slip a knife between his ribs. He'll either come back as the hero of our side, or theirs." She countered.

Also a possibility. Somehow Lucius doubted it. His son wasn't a killer, nor had he ever proven to be particularly cunning. He had tried to save those three. They had both known who they were the moment they arrived. He, like Draco, had stalled hoping for a miracle. One came, but not quickly enough.

He preferred to think Draco had joined Harry. It was fast becoming better to be against the Dark Lord, than to serve him. The complete destruction of their culture at his hands was proof enough that he never cared for their ideals, nor their needs.

"You should go inside." He whispered into her ear. "Get some sleep. Try to be presentable when he gets back."

She shook her head, tangling her hair in the rough stubble on his face. God what he wouldn't give for a shave.

"Sleep deprived and covered in filth, I don't care. I will be damned if I'm not the first thing he sees when he walks up that path."

There was no room for argument here. There was never any room for argument between them. Because they never argued. Their intentions always aligned to the point that their words, no matter how disagreeable they sounded, had only ever been a formality.

They stood there for some time. The sunrise from the gate wasn't as nice as from the tower, where you could see the golden glow light up the very top layer of leaves like an ocean of Felix. If you timed it just right.

Even that sight, which he so enjoyed on the mornings he could afford to stay for breakfast before work, couldn't compare to the sound of a crack and the appearance of a familiar figure landing unceremoniously at the edge of the wards.

"Dr- Draco!" Narcissa choked out before sprinting out of his embrace.

He stumbled after her as she passed through the incorporeal gate, following her as fast as he could in his exhausted state. His heart had never beaten so hard in his life. His already bad blood pressure shot through the roof from the small exertion.

He didn't care. He could die of massive cardiovascular failure then and there, so long as he could touch his son one last time.

He fought a losing battle with the tears as his wife embraced the floored Draco to her chest. He wasn't going to cry. He'd never done it in front of his son, not since the day he first held him. He needed to be strong, he needed to show his son that everything was going to be okay by being the stoic father he always was.

He couldn't even bring himself to speak as he kneeled beside the rest of his family and grabbed Draco beneath the shoulder, eager to look him in the eyes as he welcomed him home.

The sight of black, congealed blood leaking from a toothless mouth below lifeless eyes turned his very soul to ice before he suffered an even more terrible sensation. That of a hook grasping him by the naval.

Narcissa fell to an all too familiar green curse before he could even stand up on the grassy field they landed on. He fell to a cruciatus before he could even lift his wand to defend himself.

Every cruciatus curse is unique to the caster, much like the patronus. It was supposed that the same was true for the Avada Kadavra, to match the casters perception of what death felt like, but that theory was left unconfirmed for obvious reasons.

This cruciatus. It was so unlike Voldemort's, whose punishments felt like hot knives in your very bones. It wasn't like Narcissa's, whose wand was turned on him by the Dark Lord's command with his most recent failure. It had broken her heart, and felt like stinging nettle turned into yarn and threaded through his very veins. All of them.

This pain. It felt cold. As if he were on an island in the arctic, wind and sleet tearing his flesh from his bones as he stared out at a dead, broken world.

When the curse lifted, Lucius noticed three things. First was that he had been relieved of his wand. Second, that he was flat on his back. Third, that the look in that boy's eyes showed a vast emptiness beyond even that his crucio had promised.

"Hiya Lucy!" Harry greeted before kicking the Malfoy patriarch in the teeth. "It's been too long."

The boy didn't even need to stun him after that. Lucius had already passed out as his resistance to exhaustion was stolen away from him by a great and terrible despair. Despair at how all light in the world had vanished, before his very eyes.

* * *

"I have to admit." Moody admitted. "I am impressed."

As Harry looked down at the two dead and one unconscious bodies he could understand why. He was impressed with himself, to be completely honest.

"I never would have thought about using an inferi as a Portkey. Was that Miss Granger's contribution?" His teacher asked, looking nore closely at the thrashing Dracoferi.

"No sir. That was all me. Although she did work out the arithmancy to help me determine it was possible and taught me how to do it."

"Still. Damn kid." Moody sighed. "There isn't an Auror alive who hasn't wondered how dangerous they'd be if they went down the criminal route. You've confirmed most of our suspicions."

Harry could believe that. With all their knowledge of legality, policing practices and criminal behavior a turned Auror could easily, well, get away with murder. Harry didn't quite have all of that training, but he did have a host of experience combating Death Eater and Auror methods. So he we close.

Moody must have thought of something hilarious because he began cackling to himself. It was still a dreadful sound.

"I'm reminded of a quote." He said.

Harry was certain he wasn't going to like it, but he motioned his recent mentor to continue.

"There is no force of nature so great, no beast of the wild that shall not quake, no divine force nor pretty words that can abate it, when a kind man learns to hate." He quoted. **(A/N - 1)**

Harry was right. He didn't like it.

"What I want to know is. Why did it take you so long to learn, Potter?"

That was a good question.

"I guess I'm just slow where it really counts."

Moody grunted.

"Dismiss me. When you call me back again I expect to see three fresh corpses at your feet. No more, no less."

"Why three specifically?" Harry asked.

Moody raised a finger. "When you first called me you had one corpse, the boy." He lifted another finger. "Just now you presented two more. Next time I expect three new ones. The time after that, four. Capiche?"

Harry nodded and dismissed him.

* * *

When he called Ron and Hermione back they refused to believe that their week's worth of planning had actually gone off without a hitch for once. He spent all three trips carrying the bodies inside assuring them that it really had.

"Where did you get a walk-in freezer?" Hermione asked after he carefully places the widow down in it.

"I told the gnomes I needed one and they somehow managed to steal it from a McDougal's that was near the pharmacy." He told them.

"You might as well just rob the entire fucking block at this rate." Ron had said.

And so they did.

Half of the tent interior was now filled with boxes over boxes of frozen food, drugs, snacks, soft drinks, a few power tools and a host of fast-food cooking apparatus he had big plans for.

He expanded the internal space of the freezer to make room for all of the perishables and expanded some cardboard boxes for the non perishables. He was really pushing the limits of how many expanded spaces could fit inside of an expanded space.

The power tools and IV apparatus came in handy when working on repurposing Narcissa's corpse for future operations. Magically altering corpses tended to end badly, even preservation spells had odd effects. Most of these effects just made the zombies look more like, well, zombies. He couldn't believe they actually fell for the Draco gambit with his body falling apart like that.

He didn't have the skill to properly preserve and create a lifelike inferi out of his first fallen foe, but he did for the second.

He drained Narcissa of blood by flooding her veins with saline solution through a needle in one arm and collecting the runoff through a needle on the other. He learned to create some embalming solution from the book, a recipe by some guy names Peter Forestius, and an arterial solution recipe by some guy named W. Hunter. They were both surprisingly aromatic, being made mostly of herbs.

He got most of the ingredients he needed from a new age aromatherapy store that had set up shop near the pharmacy they robbed blind. It probably chose that location in order to try and pretend their snake oil was legitimate. Useful for his purposes? Sure. Magic? Potentially, but not in the bullshit ways the dreadlocked ditz running the store seemed to think. Some could be useful for potions, others for cooking, but most just smelled nice.

He stole the ingredients on principle and with exactly zero shame.

He finished his work by drilling a hole into the woman's skull with a power drill to insert the focus for the resurrection magic before coating her naked body in honey - an ancient method for corpse preservation that worked shockingly well - before shoving her unceremoniously into the freezer beside the tub of blood and the McDougal chicken patties.

It took Harry a few days, a mind altering cocktail of narcotics - that REALLY shouldn't be mixed - and profuse use of the cruciatus curse before he could get the former head of house Malfoy under his imperius.

Even under his bidding Lucius sobbed terribly while filing the paperwork and writing letters as per Harry's instruction. It was really annoying. And distracting. Couldn't he see that Harry was trying to concentrate on defiling his wife and son's corpses? Some people could be so inconsiderate!

He read over the handwritten letter of defection before killing the patriarch with the same green curse he killed the other two with. He tried not to enjoy cutting open the man's corpse, bit it just felt too good.

* * *

People say necessity is the mother of creativity. Harry disagreed with that sentiment. Necessity is the father of of invention. Boredom is the mother of invention. Invention brought about by necessity were quick, powerful and usually violent. Invention brought about by boredom came slow, like a living thing gestating in a womb, and like living things are usually built to last and evolve with time.

Boredom was his constant friend in the weeks after his successful elimination of the entire Malfoy line. He couldn't use their inferi for any of his plans yet, they were still gestating themselves, so he moved onto inventing.

Aside from training with his blades and wands, his time was spent writing out plans for taking down individual Death Eaters or their strongholds, leaving question marks in his odd thought tree diagrams for areas of a plan that required more information. Frustrated by the stack of papers before him with little else other than question marks he gave up until his plans for the undead could be carried out.

That's when the boredom really set in, and that's how he came to sit at the table with all of his odder memorabilia strewn about it. He had the Golden Egg and Miniature Horntail from his fourth year, which were both as perfectly functional as the day he got them. The tournament organizers really paid up to get the best craftsman and enchanters for everything to do with the tournament. He also had the two lockets and the Marauder's Map.

"I like your thinking Harry." Ron told him as he looked over the table. "Your choice of Horcruxes are so much better than Tom's."

That's what they were. The items that he would be most likely to turn into Horcruxes in the event he ever needed another one. At this point it was purely academic, but with how the Snitch came out it was a surefire way to create unique and competent companions.

"Much more utilitarian than Riddle's." Hermione agreed. "But why the lockets?"

Harry reached past the sleeping miniature of the dragon he faced at the first task and picked up the pair of lockets. The fake, pristine one and the destroyed, real one.

"I'm thinking about changing the fake to look more like the original and then putting it back in the cave." He told them. "It would be truly safe there, even if Vol... You-Know-Who finds out about the others. He'll assume it's his and protect it for me. If we destroy all the others but he thinks this one is safe he'll take risks as if he's still immortal. Or maybe try to re-absorb it thinking it's his."

Hermione simply loved that idea. He could tell. It wasn't often she was impressed with him, so he recognized the look she gave him when she was.

They'd both read what happened to those who tried to re-incorporate a Horcrux. If anything went wrong it would, at best, result in death. Trying to re-absorb someone else's Horcrux would either result in the spiritual annihilation of the Horcrux and the person, or will swap the fragmented souls between them. Whether the writers of the book had discovered this in accident or on purpose, he couldn't tell. He suspected the latter.

He hated the idea of sacrificing a piece of his own soul to effectively kill Voldemort proper, but he was willing to do that in a heartbeat to win the war. He also didn't like the idea of inhabiting his enemies body, but the strategic value of such an eventuality couldn't be over-estimated.

"But wasn't the original enchanted?" Ron asked. "To be able to understand parseltongue and whatever Salazar did to it? Can you fake that too?"

Damn. It wasn't every day Ron was the one to poke holes in a plan.

"We don't have the tools to study it, nor the skills to reverse engineer it if we did." Hermione said, biting her nonexistent lip.

Well that plan was out.

"Have you tried talking to it?" Ron suggested before Harry could jump to the next idea.

"It's destroyed Ronald." Hermione said more consolingly than ascerbicly. "There's no way it could still work in it's original capacity."

Ron seemed to consider this.

"I'm not so sure about that." He concluded. "I mean, you could still write in the diary after you destroyed it, if you so chose, so who's to say whatever magic was originally in the locket left when you destroyed it?"

They both stared at him.

"I mean, it doesn't hurt to try!"

Harry couldn't argue with that. The worst that could happen is that he'd feel stupid afterwords. He turned the mangled piece of jewelry over in his hand and tried to make out what was once a snake symbol on it's cover.

"Hello?" He managed to say in parseltongue on the first try.

The head of the S-shaped snake wriggled ever so slightly and responded in broken speech, as if from a radio cutting in and out.

"Gree - tings. I am the teacher." The locket said back to him just above a whisper.

Huh. He could always use more of those. He liked where this was going.

"Well! Don't keep us in suspense. What did it say?" Hermione pressed.

"It said hello and that it was a teacher." He told them.

"Teacher of what?" Ron asked.

He relayed the question to the inanimate object.

"I teach of the chamber. I teach of the history. And I teach magic of the serpent tongue."

Damn. That last one sounded useful. Hermione agreed.

"I'm guessing it works like the sorting hat, but with less individuality." Hermione suggested. "Let's keep our questions simple. It might not be able to hold conversations outside of it's scope."

Made sense. From what he'd read in Hogwarts A History, which he finally read earlier that week, the sorting wasn't able to do anything beyond calling out house names and singing a song written by the headmaster. As time went on and as it touched the minds of countless thousands of people, something from their minds rubbed off onto him. Scary.

"How do I enchant an object to respond to parseltongue?" He asked the locket.

Turns out it's exactly the same way you enchant any object to respond to a password. You just do it in parseltongue. Boo. He enchanted the golden egg to open only when told to in the fiendish language. It worked well enough.

But what was really interesting is the capabilities of objects enchanted in such a way. The locket didn't bother telling him this until he asked what was so special about doing the magic in parseltongue instead of a made up language that only the user knew.

Unlike objects enchanted with normal languages, there was no restriction on how many times you could layer the spell on. He was able to "program" the mini Hungarian Horntail to go to sleep, wake up, crawl an fly on command.

But this was just the first level of parseltongue enchantments. Enchanting an object to also speak in parseltongue itself was much more powerful. Because you could command it almost as if it were a living snake itself. He undid the enchantments on the animated lizard and tried it out.

Turns out he didn't have to do this because he could give the dragon the ability to speak and to obey individual commands. The mini dragon wasn't anywhere near being sentient but it did seem to follow instructions as well as any dog, and the locket informed him that he could imbue it with knowledge by pouring memories into it like a pensieve. It would develop its own personality and ability to speak from there.

Or he could just use it as a vessel for his soul.

"This is cool and all, but what's up with the egg?" Ron eventually interrupted.

It must have been rather boring watching him talk to a locket and dragon.

"Well. I thought the ability to speak mermish would be useful. Even without the mobility of my other two prospective Horcruxes."

"What? Were you just planning to drop it in the middle of the black lake and recruit the tribe there?"

"Actually I was thinking about dropping it in the ocean near a known tribe. Make them think I'm communicating with them like a radio."

"And what then, they start to worship it as an idol?"

"Yeah. And with the added ability to speak snake they can use it to tame sea serpents and the like. After fulfilling it's demands for virgin sacrifices and all that of course."

"Build an army of sea serpent riding mermaids from there?"

"My thoughts exactly."

They were both joking, mostly. Hermione was always so slow to catch onto their humor. This probably had more to do with how ridiculous their usual adventures were, to the point that any kind of surrealist stories they could come up with in good humor seemed rather plausible by comparison.

"Who's to say making it into a Horcrux would let the piece of you in it speak and understand mermish?" She countered.

Harry shrugged.

"We've seen Horcruxes take on interesting abilities from the objects they infected. At the very least it should be able to speak. Hopefully in mermish as well."

"That seems like an awful stretch to risk doing the ritual again."

"Well it's just hypothetical at this point. The little dragon is first on my list."

Said little dragon had gone back to sleep. Harry wondered all of a sudden if Fleur and Krum had kept theirs. Or if Mister Diggory had his son's. He could have a whole pack of mini dragon Horcruxes. Could he enchant them to grow and shrink in size at will? What kind of drain on his magic would they cause?

"And the map?" Hermione pressed. "What was your line of reasoning behind that?"

Harry sighed.

"Honestly I'm really hesitant to use it." He told her. "But, if I'm able to communicate with the piece of my soul inside of it like I can the Snitch, then I could have a map of Hogwarts in my mind at all times. And if I can expand the area the map incorporates..."

He let that thought hang in the air. With his earlier point about how items turned into Horcuxes essentially became supercharged, the possibility of a world spanning Marauder's Map didn't seem so unlikely. Being able to access such a resource with your mind would be... Devastating. But also probably a pipe dream.

"I was worried you picked it for sentimental value. That's the trap You-Know-Who fell into." Ron said.

Harry scoffed at that.

"Sentimental value is why I'm hesitant to turn it into one. If I wanted to create a Horcrux for sentimental value I'd use my dad's cloak." He explained. "Or my wand."

Hermione got THAT look on her face at the mention of his broken wand. He knew that look too. He didn't like this one.

"That might be a good idea." She said.

"Why would turning a broken wand into a Horcrux be a good idea?" Ron asked incredulously. "Especially when he could create one out of a functioning dragon model!"

Harry was wondering that too but their friend refused to answer, instead demanding Harry retrieve it. He did so, digging the padded box Ollivander had given him to use as a coffin for his destroyed companion and opening it to show the sorry sight.

"Could you cast reparo on it?"

Harry obliged and the wand stitched itself back together with a tap from Malfoy's.

"And it breaks again whenever you cast a spell with it?" She verified..

Harry nodded.

"That or if I jostle it too much."

Hermione nodded. Deep in thought.

"Okay. So hear me out." She began sounding an awful lot like Ron. "If you turn an item into a vessel, it then becomes nearly indestructible. So if you repair it and then very carefully perform the splitting ritual..."

Harry understood exactly where she was coming from as soon as the word 'indestructible' left her mouth.

"Then it won't break when I try to cast a spell and I'll have my wand back! Good as new!"

His greatest weapon against Voldemort, a wand that actively despised him and became like unto the elder wand itself when facing him. It was probably his best chance in a battle against the dark lord now that he possessed the first hollow. His only chance.

"Or better than good as new." Ron vocalized.

Oh. Now there's a thought.

How would a wand's properties change when turned into a Horcrux? Would it become more responsive? More powerful? Would it be able to cast spells on it's own? Assist him in casting? The possibilities were endless.

"I think creating another Horcrux just became a huge priority." Harry told his friends.

"What, it's no longer academic?" Hermione said sarcastically, but not maliciously.

No it was not. He needed his wand back. Not necessarily immediately, but at least before he confronted Voldemort. And that confrontation was three Horcruxes away from being a winnable conflict to any degree. So it didn't have to happen immediately. It could wait until the Snitch lost it's utility and he could re-absorb the piece of his soul within it.

"So what are you going to kiss goodbye?" Ron asked. "Nose? Eyes?"

"Probably eyes." Harry admitted. "The Snitch can live without Moody's. But I'll want to get a second prosthetic so I'm not walking around with a pirate patch ."

He should probably ask the Snitch his opinion on the matter when it got back from reconnaissance.

"Well, call Moody back here!" Ron insisted. "If anybody knows where to get another eye like his, it'll be him."

Harry nodded and made to do so, but before he could a familiar crack stopped his efforts. Dobby had come to visit, but instead of carrying a tray of home-cooked food by order of Mrs Weasley - the young silver haired one - he carried a newspaper.

"Ah! Have they published Lucius' letter already?" Harry asked.

He'd expected them to take at least a day.

"No, Master Harry Potter Sir. Something terrible has happened!"

Well that killed his cheerful mood. He snatched the copy of The Daily Prophet from the elf's hands and read the front page. The news certainly put a wrench in his plans.

 **Hogwarts' New Summer School Program**

 _Long-suffering parents and concerned educators the country over rejoiced yesterday as the new headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry not only confronted, but tackled centuries old concerns over the need to give extended education to the less magically gifted subsets of our community._

 _"We've been begging the ministry for decades to increase spending for the mentally challenged students." Dolores Umbridge, head speaker of the Hogwarts board of directors told us in a press release. "It warms my heart to see the vigorous efforts and compassion being shown to the mentally challenged students with ridiculous notions of the Muggle world, to say nothing of the willingness to put in the astronomical effort needed to properly educate Muggleborn students to the same level that pureblood students can achieve with aplomb."_

 _Indeed, the previous headmaster had utterly refused to acknowledge the intellectual shortcomings of certain student populations, thus denying them the help they will need to have even a modicum of success in the real world. As they say, when you expect a fish to climb it will go it's whole life thinking it's an idiot._

 _That's all about to change._

 _Students with mundanophilic tendencies, that is to say, those who fetishize the savagery of Muggle "society" or the bestial creatures themselves, as well as those who carry the more animalistic behavior from being raised in such a "community" will be required to go through summer training programs. They will be overseen by a Ministry appointed committee led by none other than Dolores Umbridge herself, who will be taking time off of her new job as Head Speaker to assist the school in aiding our less fortunate brothers and sisters._

 _The new program will teach students about the extreme discrimination they will face in the real world and how to eek out a living and combat such bigotry, as well as how to cope with their own shortcomings. The new Wizarding Occupation and Welfare Director, Walden Macnair will also oversee the training and give to the students who complete these courses jobs reserved for the downtrodden by means of affirmative action._

 _We would like to thank Ms Umbridge for her sacrifice, as well as that of Headmaster Snape for being so progressive in his thinking and his willingness to give up his summer vacation to give back to the community._

 _Professor Snape had this to say -_

Harry crumpled up the worthless cum rag and tossed it into the small furnace in the corner. Ron and Hermione had read over his shoulder, the latter no doubt read all the way to the bottom in the amount of time it took him to get halfway through it. They remained silent as he thought.

They were keeping Muggleborns and blood traitors at Hogwarts over summer. It was portrayed in the exact same bullshit goodwill as all governments use when deliberately mis-educating minorities to pity themselves and blame their problems on discrimination, while portraying itself as the heroic solution to those problems. Just like with Muggle governments, the beginning middle and end to all of the problems are the government itself.

Create legally mandated discrimination or invent one that doesn't even exist, blame it on extra-governmental targets, indebt the victims through 'charitable' job and welfare programs to handicap them further. If any political party tries to fight against your efforts you blame them for your crimes and accuse them of trying to take away your solution.

Force feed your victim poison, sell them the cure.

How could anybody believe this horse shit! This was clearly a hostage situation.

The students of those most likely to resist the new regime are being kept in a secure castle and forcibly re-educated into a victim mentality that will either make them dependant on, or turn them into outright worshippers of, the new state. A permanent and loyal voting block that should hang the people they are loyal too.

They were going to brainwash his friends.

"Master Harry Potter Sir?" Dobby said, interrupting his pacing. "What does it all mean?"

Harry smiled at the little elf, doing his best to show a confidence he didn't feel, in order to console his friend.

"It means our plans to retrieve Dumbledore's Army has been accelerated to priority number one."

He picked up one of the DA coins from the end table by his desk - the master coin that all others mirror - and sent word to his warriors. They will hear his call. And they will be ready.

* * *

 **Author's notes**

 **(A/N 1** ) Can't find the real quote of this. I looked everywhere. Th original definitely isn't Wrath of the Awakened Saxon. If you guys can help me find the quote about good men learning to hate that would be awesome.


	6. Announcement

**Announcement:**

* * *

I am rewriting this story under the title " **Harry Potter and the Blood-Soaked Succession**."

I realize I have already renamed the story to have the same title, but have reverted it back to the original title " **Fight Fire with Fire and Burn the Whole World Down.** " So I'm sorry for any confusion.

The rewrite will be much more action oriented and have far less comedy. It will have a faster pace and all-around have more shit going on.

Thank you everyone who has favorites and followed this story, and a double thank you to those who have reviewed it. I'm sorry for doing this but if you want to continue enjoying this story, and I hope you do, click on my name at the top and start reading the rewrite.

Sincerely yours,

 **Richard** , aka, **NeverGonnaStop**.


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